From the Editor:
Ontario and most jurisdictions in North America seem unwilling to learn from the mistakes of others. It is very easy to build clean cost effective electrical systems but our governments keep on chasing the wind dream. The dream will turn out to be a nightmare for the system operators, the farmers who lease their land, the people living near the wind turbines and last but not least the ratepayers who will get hammered with ever rising hydro bills.
The fields will end up as junk yards of rusting broken down turbines . The investors will come out on the good end because the wind industry is a tax scheme not an electrical system.
The report below should help you understand the reality of the wind industry.
[ News Watch Home ]
Wind turbines continue to multiply the world over. But as they grow bigger and bigger, the number of dangerous accidents is climbing. How safe is wind energy?
It came without warning. A sudden gust of wind ripped the tip off of the rotor blade with a loud bang. The heavy, 10-meter (32 foot) fragment spun through the air, and crashed into a field some 200 meters away.
The wind turbine, which is 100 meters (328 feet) tall, broke apart in early November 2006 in the region of Oldenburg in northern Germany — and the consequences of the event are only now becoming apparent. Startled by the accident, the local building authority ordered the examination of six other wind turbines of the same model.
The results, which finally came in this summer, alarmed District Administrator Frank Eger. He immediately alerted the state government of Lower Saxony, writing that he had shut down four turbines due to safety concerns. It was already the second incident in his district, he wrote, adding that turbines of this type could pose a threat across the country. The expert evaluation had discovered possible manufacturing defects and irregularities.
Mishaps, Breakdowns and Accidents
Canadian Truths 
With all developments and technologies there is a period where disasters can occur – wind power is no exception. It happened in all manner of developments – look at the transport industry, space research, even medicine! Most of these developments are now taken as every day events.
Given a few years wind, wave, solar, etc will all be part of “a mix” to generate energy. A few disasters along the way are an unfortunate fact of life – expect it!
Clearly it doesn’t mean we abandon the technology. As the old saying goes ” you don’t throw the baby out with the bath water!”
Spend your time argueing about something that really hurts a group of people like nuclear waste and emissions from coal generation. You obviously don’t get the big picture on pollution. For that matter argue why the electric car produced in ON and legal to drive in BC and AB is not on the road here? Somebodies making money.
One nuclear accident ruins a region.
One coal plant explosion ruins hundreds of lives.
One CNG explosion will decimate square miles.
One wind turbine accident generally ruins one wind turbine. Admittedly, sometimes a technician has died, but the risk factor is less by orders of magnitude.
As for efficiency, I believe we’ve gotten lulled into the higher efficiencies and ignored the externalities of other generation types. Wind has few externalities. Cleanliness and sustainability do, however, have an efficiency cost. Get over it.
Kay… if we diddnt have wind power, how much
would the cost of electricity be?
Plus, when
is wind going to run out? Ill tell you this
much, i doubt your going to be around when it
does. Sooooo yeah. Go wind power!
dude wind power is a clean resource and its
natural… and it will almost never run out.
ohh yea… wind power f*ckin pwnz..
D Pickard:
You cannot engineer mother nature. That is the fuel source and that will never change. Educate yourself on what is happening now in other parts of the world, particularly Europe. People are starting to ask questions and wind energy is proving to be a big disappointment…inefficient, expensive and destructive to nature.
“The fields will end up as junk yards of rusting broken down turbines . The investors will come out on the good end because the wind industry is a tax scheme not an electrical system.”
Disagree. Though issues will arise with the growth of a new industry, most of these issues will be engineered out of future generations of Turbines, and consolidation and scaling up of production will allow for higher inventories of spare parts.
In the end, wind will be an important niche in power generation, there’s little doubt about that.